


Secret's Out

by BlueRoboKitty



Series: Secret's Out [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Brooding, Dorks in Love, Explicit Language, Humor, It Starts Out Serious And Then Ends With Screaming, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7238281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRoboKitty/pseuds/BlueRoboKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith and Pidge come to an understanding as they wait anxiously for Lance to heal after the Galra's surprise infiltration of the castle. Pidge learns Keith has a secret of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret's Out

**Author's Note:**

> Update: 6/29/16 
> 
> Holy quiznak you guys I didn't expect for this silly little fic of mine to be so well-received. Thank you, thank you so much for all of your lovely comments and kudos. It's been a wonderful surprise! 
> 
> And be sure to read this fic's sequel [Apology in a Bottle](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7335031). Thank you again and enjoy! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

Keith cringed as he crossed the infirmary, his footsteps echoing throughout the room like setting off a small explosion with each step in the all-too-quiet castle. Everyone had retired for the night, exhausted by the sudden Galra attack that had hit way too close to home. The Red Paladin couldn’t sleep, however. He was consumed with worry, and that worry carried him to this dark room filled with an eerie blue glow of an active cryogenic pod.

He didn’t really know why he all but lost his mind when Lance had been caught up in the explosion. The disappointment when he found out the attackers on the local village had been nothing more than broken robots set up as a distraction almost made him sick. Never had he wanted to kill something so much. Each enemy fighter ship he destroyed while defending the castle waiting for Hunk’s return with a new crystal had him cackling with glee, to the point where Shiro had expressed concern. Paladins were meant to fight with such ferocity, it was true, but they weren’t supposed to _enjoy_ it. Some of the Galra they fought that day weren’t just robots but living beings.

Keith wasn’t too worried about that, however. He’d always known something about himself wasn’t right. Nobody had ever told him in so many words, which was polite of them. Instead, they’d just move him from foster home to foster home, passing him on to the next bunch of suckers in it for the government stipend the moment he failed to be the child they thought he should be. His exceptional flying skills had earned him an early graduation with honors from technical school, only for him to be kicked out of Galaxy Garrison later for starting fights and failing to connect with his classmates who were all college age. Nothing ever stayed the same for long, not for him.

_I don’t want to be lost again._

He hadn’t meant to lose his mind when Pidge threatened to leave the team. He hadn’t wanted to admit that the team was, well, the most he ever had. He wouldn’t pretend he’d understood where the other pilot was coming from – family, what was that even? But with Lance stuck in a cryogenic pod as its healing technology slowly stitched his broken body back together, Keith understood a bit better.

It was funny how most of the time he wished Lance would magically stop talking, like his vocal cords just suddenly vanished, and from then on any time he opened his mouth nothing but sweet, golden silence would emerge. Well, be careful what you wished for and all that. Lance floating there in the pod, not moving, not saying anything, alive by technicality… it was wrong.

“Stupid,” Keith muttered, staring at him. He wasn’t sure who he was talking to, truth be told. He didn’t even know why he bothered coming here in the first place. Lance didn’t reply, of course, didn’t call him ‘stupid’ or something else dumb in retaliation. “Stupid!” he said again, louder this time, and shoved against the pod as if trying to start a fight. Maybe he was. The pod made a quiet _woo_ sound and sparked blue upon the impact of his hands slamming into the glass, but otherwise remained completely still.

“Stupid.”

He choked.

Running a hand through his black hair, which still messy from battle and damp from helmet sweat, he forced back the tears itching at his almond shaped eyes, suddenly faced with the terrifying thought of what if the cryogenic healing pod wasn’t enough? Who knew how long Lance would be in there. The technology was advanced enough to keep Lance hydrated, the machine feeding nutrients into his system to sustain him, but that what if that wasn’t enough?

“You can’t do that to me, man,” Keith found himself saying through gritted teeth. “You can’t leave, too.”

“Keith?”

He started when he heard his name, whipping around to see Pidge standing behind him. The smaller pilot straightened his glasses, golden eyes looking rather apologetic. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting anything.”

Keith shook his head. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I suppose.” He looked at Lance. “I’m worried about him.”

The shadows cast over Lance’s brown face against the blue glow were dark and far too still. “This is probably going to sound bad,” Pidge began, shifting his weight awkwardly, “but I’d never thought I’d see Lance so… not being Lance.”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed.

Ticks of silence stretched between them, the only sound being the pod humming quietly as it kept their teammate alive.

“Keith,” Pidge said finally, “about earlier.”

“It’s fine if you want to leave,” Keith interjected, an icy sensation closing around his throat. Of course, it wasn’t fine. But he hadn’t exactly been selfless when he’d yelled at Pidge about it, anyway. “I understand a bit better now. It’s family.”

“That’s just it, though,” Pidge insisted, and Keith felt a little annoyed that the Green Paladin continued chasing after the subject but he let him talk. “After everything’s that happened, I realized… you guys are kind of like family now, too. I mean, we may not get along all the time but that’s how family is, right?”

“Sure.” What did he know?

“I just lost my head for a bit there. I’m sorry. I’ve realized that I can’t abandon you guys. Especially if…” He trailed off with that thought, and Keith was grateful for it.

“Sooooo… we cool?”

Pidge was giving him such a hopeful, remorseful look and Keith felt the corners of his mouth tug a little. “Yeah. We’re cool.”

Pidge’s small shoulders dropped as if a weight had been lifted, and Keith’s forgiveness seemed to give him the courage to talk about something else. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Sure.” Why not.

“Do you like Lance?”

That question could mean anything, really, but Keith’s face warmed. “Wh-what?” he stammered.

“Hmmm.” Pidge stared intensely at Keith now, straightening his glasses again, his eyes narrowed as he scrutinized every blushing detail of the other pilot’s face. “It’s just that you two are always fighting like an old married couple.”

“That’s because he’s on my case all the time for no reason!” Keith protested hotly.

“Lance seems to easily get a rise out of you,” Pidge pointed out. “I mean, if we’re being brutally honest here, you are kind of a hothead.”

“Hey – “

“But even then, every time you’ve been the most pissed off, it had to do with Lance. Except when you yelled at me earlier. But that’s beside the point, really.”

Pidge’s glasses slid down his nose once again, and a slim finger slid the frame back. It was almost as if the glasses weren’t made for his face.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, though,” he continued. He gave Keith a cute, hopeful smile. “But maybe it’ll help a little? I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

Keith sighed. “No secrets between teammates and all that, right?” He looked pointedly at Pidge, who shifted again, eyes darting uncomfortably. He sighed. “Okay, fine. I wouldn’t exactly use the word ‘like’ but… I think Lance is kind of cute.”

Pidge absolutely beamed. “I _knew_ it!” Then he frowned. “Although, ‘cute’ would not be my first choice in words to describe Lance.”

That wasn’t exactly the kind of response Keith wanted to hear. “Am I that obvious?” he groaned in defeat.

“Not accounting for taste or anything, but you’re the type who gets really fired up over things he feels deeply for. It’s pretty obvious you feel something for Lance, even if that something is burning hatred. Then again, they do say hate is just another form of love.”

“Oh, great.”

“Well, your secret’s safe with me,” Pidge promised with a reassuring smile that Keith couldn’t help smiling back at.

“Thanks.”

* * *

 

This was bad. This was so, so bad.

They were surrounded by all sides by Galra fighter ships. One would go down, and then two or three more would take its place, mindless robots that were easily expendable. How else would Zarkon be able to conquer almost the entire universe with seemingly infinite resources? Red was running low on power. Keith could feel the robot Lion’s exhaustion as vividly as his own. Sweat trickled within the fine cracks of his armor, fusing it to his skin, as he stared at dozens, maybe hundreds, of Galra fighters lined up before him.

Voltron probably wouldn’t get them out of this one, even if Shiro and Hunk weren’t stuck somewhere beneath the planet’s surface fighting off the Galra that had trapped them there. They were in way, way over their heads this time, having grown cocky from their past successful battles.

“Hey, Keith.”

The familiar voice along with Lance’s digital image popped up over Keith’s communication console from thin air. The Red Paladin grunted with irritation. He was frustrated enough as it was, and he didn’t have the patience to deal with Lance’s nonsense at the moment. “Yeah, what?” he snapped.

The Blue Paladin didn’t seem to react to Keith’s vicious reply. In fact, he looked more serious than he usually was. The situation was dire indeed if the team’s most laid back member acted worried about something without his usual inappropriate comments to hide behind.

Gunfire sprayed from the Galra fighters, lighting up the sky in a shower of crimson fire. The three Lions on the surface took off in different directions as they tried to evade. There were too many of the enemy for the pilots to even attempt taking them on individually.

“Guys, what’s the plan?!” Pidge yelped, trying to hold in their panic. “We really need a plan!”

“Hang on a sec, Pidge. Since things are lookin’ pretty bad out here,” Lance began in an uncharacteristic somber tone amidst the explosions barely missing him and spewing chunks of land in all directions, “There is somethin’ I really need to tell you, Keith. Before we die and stuff.”

Keith sighed with a slight groan as he swung Red around tightly and causing a fighter to crash into the mesa behind him. May as well indulge him. “What _is it,_ Lance?”

The Blue Paladin’s serious face split into a wide grin. “Oh, man, this is almost too embarrassing, I don’t know if I can bring myself to say it, _teehee.”_

“LANCE!” Did he just “teehee”?

“Okay, okay. I just wanted to let you know, man, I kind of like you, too.”

Keith sat in silence for a moment as he tried to process what was being said to him. “Thanks?” he finally said. “That’s, um, good, I guess.”

Lance’s digital image pursed its lips in a pouty frown. “Aw, bro, don’t be a _tease._ You know _exactly_ what I mean.”

“I… do?”

His heart was racing in his throat. Why was Lance talking to him like he was hitting on a random alien girl? Unless…

“I think you’re cute, too.”

Keith choked on air. “Wha-what!?”

“WHAT?” the rest of the team exclaimed at the same time.

And then because Keith had no idea how to handle what was happening here: “PIDGE!”

“It-it wasn’t me!” Pidge protested, their image momentarily replacing Keith’s, eyes wide with innocence. “I swear! I kept your secret!”

“Oh-em-Jesus, Keith has a secret crush on Lance!” Hunk exclaimed with delight. “Did you guys see this coming? I mean, not gonna lie, I kinda did what with all the fighting and extreme denial.”

“Hey, guys, how about we do this later?” Shiro cut in over the sound of battle coming from his end, and even his normally soft tone strained under the last of his patience.

“Just a tick, a’right. And Pidge didn’t tell me, Keith, I heard you.”

Keith sat there staring at threatening Galra fighters, and every drop of sweat now felt like tiny slivers of ice as the memory of that night in the infirmary washed over him like falling in extremely cold water. “You were awake?” he breathed. The air was suddenly very, very thin. Red’s oxygen levels were probably critically low.

“Yeah, you woke me up when you banging on my pod.”

“You were banging on his pod?” Hunk remarked. “Jesus Christ, bro, how thirsty are you?”

“How could you have woken up from a cryogenic sleep?” Keith all but shrieked because beneath his icy sweat, his blood was beginning to boil.

“Well, those pods actually serve several functions,” Pidge cut in, “and when in curative mode – “

“Pidge, do _not_ encourage them,” Shiro warned.

It took every skill Keith had to dodge the storm of missiles heading straight for him now. The sweat of his hands had soaked clean through the gloves he wore, making his grip on the controls weak and unsure. Red was doing its best to maneuver around the assault to compensate, but it could only do so much when its paladin had fallen out of sync. Keith couldn’t concentrate on the battle. In fact, he was barely registering it.

A missile slammed into Red’s left flank, and the Lion went spiraling out of control.

_“Keith!”_

Ignoring his teammates’ panicked cries in his ears, Keith managed to right himself again before crashing. Alarms blared deafeningly all around him. Red wouldn’t last much longer.

“Keith, are you alright?” Pidge exclaimed.

“What?” Hunk cried. “What’s going on out there? Guys!? Why are we suddenly screaming at Keith instead of poking fun at him?”

“I’m fine for the most part, but Red is in bad shape.”

“Alright, guys, fly low and retreat to the western mountain range,” Shiro commanded. “Hunk and I will meet you there, and then we’ll figure out what to do.”

The others affirmed. As instructed, Keith kept Red low to the ground. The mountain walls and rocky arches would shelter him from enemy fire as well as confuse their navigation sensors. Without Voltron, his was only one small Lion compared to a massive planet of mesas that made him think of his little shack in Arizona. The fighters split up to cut them off beyond the canyon, not as agile as the Lions to navigate the rough and stony terrain. For a short while, the sky was quiet.

“Where’s Allura with a wormhole when you need one?” Hunk muttered over the console.

Lance popped up again. “Hey, while we’re enjoying a bit of a respite here, sooooooo, Keith. As I was sayin’, I heard you loud and clear that night. You think I’m _cute.”_

“I distinctly remember saying ‘kind of cute’,” Keith shot back through gritted teeth. Red was flying steady now, but his hands still held the controls in a death grip.

“HA! So you _admit_ it!”

“Shut up, stupid, it doesn’t mean anything! Baby goats are cute, but they’re still little assholes.”

“Nope, too late, you done did it now, my bro. You want a taste of this cool Blue Paladin action. You wanna piece of this _Lanass~”_

“Piece of _what!?”_ Pidge and Hunk were shrieking, but Keith couldn’t hear them over the sound of his soul dying from humiliation. Pressure formed at the pit of his stomach, pushing sickeningly against his insides.

“What the fuck is a Lanass…? Wait, do I even –?”

“Lance plus ass equals _Lanass_ , and that’s what you’re pining for, my dude.”

“Don’t act so full of yourself, I ain’t pining for shit, much less for your skinny ass!”

The rest of the team had gone dead silent. Either that, or Keith could no longer hear anything with his blood pulsing in his ears. This was why he didn’t want Lance – or _anyone_ for that matter – to find out about his attraction. Lance was cute in his own stupid way, sure. Kind of tall. Deep blue eyes. Idiotic yet sexy smirk that was both playful and infuriating. That… that didn’t mean _anything!_ Nothing at all!

“Hey, Keith, maybe when we get back to the castle, you and me… stars all over the place… quite a nice way to _bond_ , yeah?”

“Oh my God, you guys are so cute and so gross at the same time,” Hunk moaned.

“I-I just said you were cute!” Keith yelled, ignoring Hunk entirely, and his voice was etched with panic. “That’s it! It could mean a lot of things! Or nothing at all! F-fuck you, man! Don’t go shoving all that bonding shit at me! I haven’t even figured out my own feelings yet!”

“Oh, well then by all means, let me _help_ you with that.”

“No, really, Lance, it’s fine – “ Keith couldn’t see.

Lance leaned in close to the screen and winked. _“Baby.”_

Something within Keith _snapped,_ and he was screaming.

Without thinking, unable to think at all anymore, he shoved the right control lever forward so hard, his shoulder cracked. Red launched back up into the air. There was yelling coming from his console, but he didn’t pay it any attention. Heat dominated his vision as he climbed the sky in a blind rage, flames licking along Red’s alien metal teeth. A column of flame fueled by pure fury took down one Galra fighter, then another, then five more. The Galra were caught completely off guard of this Lion suddenly flying at them from the ground spewing fire like a monstrous titanium demon, and their formations began to break in panic. Those that did try to recover were destroyed before they could make a move as Keith tore through them with the wrath of a vengeful god.

* * *

 

“Great job, man, you made him go berserk,” Hunk remarked. It wasn’t a sarcastic comment. That had been the plan. And it seemed to work a little _too_ well. “Actually, no, I think you _broke_ him.”

“Damn,” Pidge said with a low whistle. “I almost feel bad for the Galra. He’s _slaughtering_ them.”

“It gave us enough time to regroup, at least. We should be able to form Voltron when he snaps out of it.” Shiro’s brow furrowed with concern. “His Lion doesn’t look too good, though. Let’s go give him some backup while the Galra are scattered.”

As the Lions took off to take advantage of the enemy’s confusion and join their comrade in battle, Shiro added, “Still, Lance, was it really _necessary_ to embarrass him like that? There are many other ways to get under his skin without getting too personal about it. You’ve certainly done so plenty times before.”

“Yeah, you kinda went a little far there,” Pidge pointed out.

“He’s still screaming,” Hunk remarked, impressed. “How does a sound like that come out of such a tiny person?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“H-hey, I was just ribbin’ him, is all!” Lance protested, although he did have the decency to look a little sheepish. “You were the one who told me on a private channel that we needed Keith to go into berserk mode as a distraction, _Shiro._ It was the first thing that came to my mind in the heat of battle is all! Like, yeah, I feel kinda bad for him, I-I-I was just followin’ orders, yeah, that’s it, followin’ orders like a _good_ Paladin!”

Three faces stared back at him from the communication console with deadpan disbelief throughout his rambling. Pidge straightened their glasses as they peered into the screen, giving Lance a scrutinizing stare at his bright red face that made him squirm a little. “Right. Whatever you say.”


End file.
